Every 10,000-mile journey starts with the first step.
That first step is the most important because if you don’t decide to take that crucial step, you won’t get to experience the feeling of completing a 10,000-mile journey, and you won’t be able to benefit your whole life from that journey and experience.
Yes. Every step of that journey will teach you something new about yourself and the world.
No, you will never be the same person mentally, physically, or spiritually after that journey. That is the point of the journey. To sculpt you into something you never imagined you could become.
I’m not going to talk here about the high you get when you start the journey. I don’t want to talk about the fact that you will feel amazing when you first start, and the thought, “This was a great idea,” keeps running between your ears.
I’m not going to say anything about the last steps. The ones you take exhausted after going through a complex and beautiful journey. Those last steps where nothing that happened along the way matters anymore, and you can not focus on anything else except on that finish line and crossing it.
I want to talk about how you feel when you reach mile 6.786. Usually, around this milepost, all your motivation has left your body. The questions “Why am I doing this?”, “What is wrong with me?”, “Who am I doing this for?”, “Have I lost my mind completely?”.
Yes. All those questions and the feelings that come along with them are going to flood your mind, your whole body, and your spirit.
The high from when you first started is long gone. The motivation you will get when you see the finish line is very far away. You are in the middle of the journey. You don’t see the finish line.
Bored. That is how you feel. In the middle of the journey, you get bored out of your mind. You know how to motivate yourself to start something, and you know how to muster that last drop of energy and motivation out of yourself when you see the finish line.
Boredom. I haven’t heard anyone speak about it, and it caught me by surprise. This is the phase where most people quit. They quit because this phase teaches you patience and discipline.
In this phase, you must develop the patience to take your time with the process. The patience to go through the motions in the same rhythm you established up until this point. I know you go from the feeling of rushing things to the feeling of stopping. Up-down, up-down. Stop it. Patience. Left, right, left, right. Maintain the rhyme and the cadence.
You will have to develop discipline to stop yourself from smashing everything around you to bits just to be entertained. Yes. You will feel it is an excellent idea to destroy that dream just to start a new one. Just so that something new and exciting will happen to you. Don’t. Stop sabotaging yourself.
Discipline. No matter how many new things or journeys you go on, the boredom phase is waiting for you precisely around the middle of that journey.
See it through! You are just bored. Embrace it and enjoy it no matter how uncomfortable it gets.
Yes.
Bored.
Do it bored, and maintain your rhythm and cadence like a soldier. Left – Right. Left – Right!
Yes!
Bored.
One more day! One more book. One more prayer!
You’ve done it desperate. You’ve done it when there was no hope. You’ve done it tired. You’ve done it crying.
And now you do it bored. And you do it well! By the book!
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Let’s go.
With love, yours truly, Cristian.